Night is Gotham
by youroneaddiction
Summary: "I'm sorry, but there isn't anything more we can do," Dr. Philips said. He looked at Bruce without sympathy. Bruce just looked at his feet, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then he turned his face to me. A face that once only looked at me with love and pride now warped with loss and confusion. They way he looked at me made my blood freeze in my veins. I had expected him to be sorro
1. Chapter 1

I looked at my face in the mirror, not much had changed since the last time I had looked. Today was my 21st birthday and I was looking forward to being alone in the house. My father had left for the city to do business, whatever it was he did. After all these years I still didn't quite understand what he did for a job, the hours he was gone just didn't seem to add up. He would leave every morning around six and would come home sometime while I was asleep. On weekends he would be home for most of the day and disappear at night. Once in a while he would have a day off, which I dreaded more than anything. The chime of the doorbell snapped me out of my trance and I walked out of the bathroom and into the hallway. I quickly went down the stairs almost slipping a few times.

"I'm coming!" I yelled as they rang the bell a second time. I turned the knob as they pressed the button a third time, giving them quite an annoyed look as the door opened. My annoyance quickly changed as I realized who had been ringing the doorbell.

Mark Shields.

An associate, who had only been working for my father for the past couple of months and had quickly risen through the ranks, assumed that my father was taking him in as an apprentice in the hopes of leaving him the company. It wasn't unusually for him to show up at the house unannounced or when my father wasn't home. He had been coming by at odd hours a lot recently.

"You're dad isn't home is he?" Mark asked looking past me and into the house. I shook my head and looked down at the ground. I could feel my cheeks heating up and I was afraid to look up for fear that Mark would see how red my face was.

"Uh, you just missed him. He left about half an hour ago" I said looking up for a split second to catch a glimpse of his green eyes. I was 21 for crying out loud, I should be able to talk to an attractive guy without being an idiot.

"Shit, well do you mind if I come in? I have to drop something off and it's important," he asked starting to push his way by me. I didn't really have much choice if he came in or not; he was already down the hall when I closed the door.

I followed him to the office, where he started rummaging through the desk.

"I thought you said you were dropping something off?" I asked leaning against the doorframe arms crossed in front of me. Mark looked up at me as if confused as to why I was still standing there.

"Uh, ya I do but I also need to grab something. It will only be a second you don't have to stand there," he said going right back to pushing aside papers and shuffling through drawers. I walked into the room and over to the desk placing my hands down on the stacks of paper he was looking through.

"Either you tell me exactly what you're doing here or I can call the police," I said looking him in the eyes. He paused and sighed before standing up straight and walking over to my side of the desk.

"I'm looking for a dark blue binder, about half an inch thick. I need to bring it into work for him," he said coolly sitting down on the edge of the desk. I looked over at him, perched there like he owned the room. As cute as I thought he was he had a tendency to be cocky, especially around me, which I hated quite a bit.

"And why couldn't you tell me that before?" I asked standing up and walking over to the bookshelf on the left side of the room. I grabbed the binder out of the wall, it was easy to find seeing as it was the only blue binder in the mix of black and white. I turned around only to bump into Mark, who had snuck up close behind me. Far too close for me to be comfortable. He grabbed the binder from me and started to walk out of the office.

"Wait a minute," I snapped walking after him. He turned around to me with a smirk on his face.

"Oh I'm sorry, thank you," he said before turning right back to the front door. I ran to cut in front of him and put my arms out to block his way. That stupid smirk was still on his face. We just looked at each other for a moment; I studied those green eyes and that shaggy mess of black hair on top of his head. For a split second I thought maybe he was thinking about me too, and I took advantage of that to grab the binder from his hands and run with it.

"Hey!" he yelled after me as I bolted down the hallway and around to corner to the stairs. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, hearing his heavy steps behind me. As childish as this seemed I really wanted to know what was so important about this binder, it had always intrigued me seeing as it was the only blue binder in the whole office. Taking the binder and running seemed to be the only way for me to see what was inside.

I turned to see where he was and as we all know from any horror movie when someone is chasing you the last thing you do is check behind you to see where they are. Mark grabbed my foot and pulled causing me to slip on the last step and fall hard onto the landing. With the wind knocked out of me he climbed over me and took the binder from my hands. He stood up and started to walk down the stairs as I slowly got onto all fours, still trying to get good breath. I heard his footsteps stop and then come closer to me.

"Are you ok?" he asked bending down to help me up. I pulled away from him almost knocking myself down the stairs. I just looked at him for a moment and then back at the binder.

"I'm fine," I said dryly turning to walk down the stairs. Mark lightly grabbed me arm and I looked back at him. He immediately let go and cleared his throat.

"Sorry about knocking you down, but you were acting like a child," he said trying to sound so much older than me. I walked down the stairs and opened the front door, motioning with my arm in the direction of the street,

"You're free to take your blue binder and go." Mark sighed and walked down the stairs and out the door. He turned and started to say something but I slammed the door before he could get the words out. He rang the doorbell once but I was already halfway up the stairs and I didn't feel like walking all the way back down. He rang it one more time before I heard his car start up and him drive away.

Now I really wanted to know what was in that blue binder and why he was being so secretive about it.


	2. Chapter 2

It was about 9:45 at night when I heard the front door creek open and slam shut. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a shiver went through my spine.

Dad was home.

I slowly got up off my bed and walked over to my door, pressing my head against it to listen to his heavy footsteps.

"Evelyn, I'm home for your birthday! Let's celebrate!" his deep voice was closer than I had hoped. I backed away from my door just as he threw it open. He had an unsettling smile on his face, which made me even more uneasy.

"Lets go downstairs and talk about your day, you're 21 now maybe we'll have a drink," he said still smiling. I followed him out into the hallway and down the stairs. I wasn't sure where this was going but I knew it couldn't be anywhere good.

We walked into the kitchen and he grabbed himself a glass. He grabbed the only bottle of wine from the wine fridge and poured half a glass. He extended it out to me,

"Would you like some?" I shook my head and smiled slightly so he wouldn't think I was being rude.

"No thank you, but I'll sit with you" I said sitting across from him at the table. He looked at me over the rim of his glass and took a big swig. I felt my palms become sweaty as I braced myself for what could happen next.

"I heard you had a visitor today" he said turning sideways in his chair and looking out the large window that overlooked our vast yard. I nodded and looked down at my hands.

"Ya, Mark came to pick something up for you" I said slowly not looking up at him, I was starting to feel very scared and didn't want to look up for fear of him snapping.

"I remember when Alfred was with us, he never let a stranger in" my father said more to himself than to me.

"Mark isn't a stranger he's-"

"It doesn't matter! You let him in the house without my prior knowledge" he said cutting me off and raising his voice.

"He's been by here more than once this week and you haven't said anything until now" I snapped, immediately regretting my quick and crass retort.

"I see, so what did he want?" he said his voice calm. I looked up at him, he had turned back to face me and was sipping on his wine.

"He wanted a blue binder from your office, said you asked him to pick it up. I grabbed it for him and-" my father slammed his hands down on the table. The glass tipped over, wine spilling onto the table, and rolled off shattering on the floor.

"You went into my office? I thought we talked about this" he said standing up and walking over to me. I pushed away from the table and backed away from him. He stopped for a minute and turned his face away from me. I could hear him muttering under his breath but couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Evelyn, we've talked about this before. No going into Daddy's office!" he yelled slamming his hand down on the table. He wasn't looking at me, or talking to me really. He seemed to be talking to someone who wasn't in the room. I felt myself start to panic as he looked up at me.

"Evelyn, your mother loved that name" he said to himself quietly. Then he lunged toward me knocking me backwards over the couch. I rolled off and onto the floor crawling away from his as fast as I could. All I needed to do was make it up the stairs and into my room faster than him and I was safe. I stood up and made a dash to the stairs.

He dashed faster.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled back, throwing me onto the floor.

"You're not supposed to go into the office! You can't let strangers in it's dangerous!" he yelled grabbing me and tossing me into the back of the couch. I put my hands up to shield my face and anticipated the next blow.

"Why doesn't she learn these things?" he cried looking up to the ceiling. I tried again to use his distraction as a way to get up the stairs but again he was faster. He grabbed my arm and threw me onto the stairs. I hit my head hard against the edge of the stair and let out a small yelp. I held my forehead and sat on the stair for a moment, trying to get through the pain. I looked up at him, his face had changed from rage to calm. He pushed his hair out of his face and walked past me, kicking me on his way up the stairs.

"Happy Birthday" he said down to me, stopping at the stop of the stairs before going into his room and slamming the door.

I pushed my self up, grabbing onto the rail for support. My ribs were sore and my head was throbbing. To be honest this wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. It was a thin line between beatings and hospital stays. A sick game he played, keeping me on edge. Only once had he gone to far and I ended up in the hospital for a week with a fractured hand and a slight concussion. That was on my 12th birthday. I always wondered why no one had said anything or tried to help me, I assumed by now that it was because my father was Bruce Wayne. He apparently held some kind of hierarchy over Gotham, at least that's what I looked at it as.

I can't even remember the last time we celebrated one of my birthdays, probably because of the concussion.


End file.
